The Wrong Thing?
by Enthusiastic Fish
Summary: Episode tag for the 200th episode. Just a short conversation between Tim and Gibbs that I wish had been in the episode. Oneshot.


**A/N:** This is a oneshot episode tag for the 200th episode which aired last night. So there are spoilers involved here. If you don't care about Tim's subplot to nowhere, then you won't care much about this, either. I just felt that there were some holes needing to be filled (mostly due to the fact that the writers crammed in three episodes into one hour). This is my attempt to fill them.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of NCIS. I am not making money on my stories.

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><p><strong>The Wrong Thing?<br>**by Enthusiastic Fish

Tim looked around the bullpen. He was alone there for the time being. Tony and Ziva had left. He assumed Gibbs had left. After all, no matter what he said, Gibbs had gone through some tough stuff. He wouldn't stay late when there was no reason to.

So Tim had the place to himself for a while. He had really tried to keep the job promotion a secret. It was the kind of thing he wanted to reason through for himself...even if he had caved and asked Tony what to do. It was too serious an idea. It would have been good for his NCIS career. He'd thought a lot about the possibilities of moving upward in the chain of command.

...but something else had come to mean more to him.

Actually, when he had told Tony and Ziva he was staying, he had suddenly thought back to that first day when Gibbs had officially taken him onto his team. It had been Tony and Kate back then. He had been greeted with a head slap. Not the most welcoming thing in the world. ...and his decision to stay, given while standing in almost the same place in the bullpen, had been greeted with a similar, almost-nonchalant acknowledgment.

Was he that transparent? Did they just not care? Variants on the same questions that had run through his head in the beginning ran through his head again. What more could he do so that they showed something of what they felt? Ziva had as much as told him to go, Tony had told him to follow his gut and make his own decision. Gibbs...he hadn't even known, hadn't said a word.

"Well, I _was_ trying to keep it to myself," Tim said aloud. "I guess I succeeded a little bit."

It seemed strange though. This momentous decision had been met with so little fanfare. They had no idea how hard it had been to _make_ that decision. Maybe life and death didn't hang on whether or not he moved to Japan (hopefully, it didn't), but Tim's life would have been drastically changed by his choice...and no one seemed to have realized it.

Maybe he was just being selfish and self-centered in thinking that the others should be worried about his life choices. Maybe he was just feeling disappointed because he remembered how concerned everyone had been about the rumor of Abby leaving. ...and when they knew about his job opportunity, that it was a genuine offer and not a rumor, nobody had seemed to care about that at all.

Still, Tim couldn't honestly say that he regretted his decision. Support from his teammates or not, he really did feel that he had a place here, a place and position he enjoyed. He could have made a lot of progress in Japan, but he could do a lot of _good_ here, not just for himself. Maybe it was egotistical, but Tim felt as though there were a lot of things he had to offer.

With a smile, Tim got up and walked to that space in between Tony and Ziva's desks. If he ever did decide to go somewhere else, maybe he'd make sure that he stood here again to make the announcement. Obviously, no one else would notice it, but Tim himself would.

As he stood in his place, he looked around the bullpen, the place he'd been for the last eight years. What would change if he _had_ decided to go to Japan? Would anything change at all? He had no idea.

"What are you doing, McGee?"

Tim spun around.

"Boss...I thought...you were...gone already."

"Had things to do."

"Oh."

"What are you doing?"

"Just thinking."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"About what?"

Tim shrugged.

"Nothing really, Boss. I think I'll just go home." He turned back to his desk and started to gather his stuff.

"McGee, what's up?"

"Nothing!" Tim said, turning back to Gibbs. ...and it was true. There wasn't _anything_ up at the moment. He'd already told Vance he was officially turning down the offer. There was no going back on that decision...and since Tim was almost positive that he didn't want to in any case, it was a moot point.

"Nothing is why you're standing in the middle of the bullpen almost at midnight?"

"Um...yes?"

"What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on, Boss."

Gibbs smiled shrewdly. "What _was_ going on?"

Oh. Caught. Tim knew he couldn't lie.

"I just made a decision and was trying to decide if it was the right one."

"What was the decision?"

"Well...Vance offered me a position in the field office in Okinawa. It would have been a promotion, good for my career."

Gibbs' eyebrows both raised quite significantly.

"And?"

"And I turned it down."

"Why?"

"I decided that I wanted to be here instead."

Gibbs sat on his desk. He seemed surprised...and _Tim_ was surprised that he seemed to be _interested _as well.

"Why is that, McGee?"

"Well...I...I _like_ it here."

"I thought you were pretty gung ho to climb the ladder."

Tim smiled a little. "I thought I was, too. Guess we were both wrong."

"So why stay here? What's changed?"

"Can I ask you something, Boss?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...why didn't you know that I'd got the offer? You always seem to know everything, but you didn't know this. Why?"

"I'm not omniscient, McGee," Gibbs said with a wry smile.

"I know that, but...well..." Tim stopped. He couldn't ask Gibbs why no one seemed to care that he had considered leaving. "Never mind."

"What, McGee?"

"It's stupid. I told Tony and Ziva about it...and they didn't seem bothered that I might be leaving. They didn't seem to really mind when I said I'd turned the offer down. _You_ didn't even know the offer had been made in the first place! I guess...I'm just wondering why."

"You think none of us care?"

"No...that's...that's not it," Tim said...and then, flushed. "Yeah...actually, it _is_ it. Not that I really think you don't...but I'm...afraid you don't. You guys all just...act differently around me than you do around each other." He shrugged and sat down in his chair. "I guess was just hoping that someone would have said something."

"You ever stop to think that they were letting you choose for yourself because they didn't want to ruin your chances by asking you to stay?"

"Yeah," Tim said with a smile. "But...at the same time... I mean, I kept it to myself...or I _tried_ to keep it to myself, but when they said they knew. It's just stupid."

"You know why they didn't tell me?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

"Because I wouldn't have let you choose."

"What do you mean, Boss? You always let people choose."

"Only when I know what their choice is going to be already. Not when I'm not sure. ...and I'm surprised that you're not taking the job."

"You think I'm wrong to give it up?" Tim asked.

"In terms of your career? Yeah, probably. Giving up a promotion isn't generally viewed as the way to get ahead."

"Oh."

"In terms of what you probably will enjoy the most? No."

"Oh," Tim said...feeling confused.

Gibbs smiled, and Tim found that he was surprised Gibbs was being so talkative, so _overt_ in his thoughts and advice.

"Sometimes, there are good reasons for doing the wrong thing."

"You think I'll regret it?"

"Do you regret it now?"

Tim shook his head. Gibbs smiled in reply...without speaking. That was more normal. Tim grinned back and grabbed his bag. He headed for the elevator.

"McGee?"

Tim paused...on the same spot he'd stood before. He looked back at Gibbs.

"I'm glad you're not going. I'm glad you're on my team."

Tim smiled. "Thanks, Boss. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Good night."

"'Night, Boss."

Tim headed home, but when he got out of the building, he stopped and looked back at it. Would it matter if the place he worked shifted somewhere else? He'd heard the same rumors as everyone had that NCIS Headquarters might be moving to Quantico, but would that matter?

No. Not if the work stayed the same...not if the people were there.

Was it the wrong thing? Maybe, but Tim had no regrets.

FINIS!


End file.
